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Friday, July 15, 2016

What I learned about business by mowing lawns and selling night crawlers

It’s summer time, and a host of memories flood my mind, especially
about mowing lawns and selling night crawlers.

Fortunately, growing up in eastern Idaho had its advantages. People
loved to fish and needed bait, and they had big yards that constantly needed
mowing. Plus, night crawlers love big lawns with lots of water. So, when you
combine all of these, you conclude that there’s money to be made, and we wanted
to make some to buy very important things like motorcycles.

Money was always hard to come by as we were growing up. No gave us an
allowance for any of the chores we did. We did them because they were part of
what our family did. Now that I look back, it was really part of the rent I
paid in order to have food on the table, clothes to wear, and transportation to
and from where we wanted to go. Plus, we fished a lot, and Dad covered most of
these costs.

So, in order to generate revenue, we had to start our own business
without the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and governmental
intervention. We just did it the old-fashioned way: We decided on what we
wanted to do and just did it. Along the way, we did learn a few things about
being business owners. Here are a few we learned:

Business plan—As young boys
growing up in a small town, we understood there wasn’t much we could do until
we turned old enough to have a driver’s license. Thus, our business
opportunities were basically lawn mowing and selling night crawlers by the
dozen or in bulk. Our business plan was very simple and not written down: find
people who wanted their lawns mowed and would pay for it and gather enough night
crawlers several times a week to have enough inventory to sell, especially on
the weekends. We also knew we had to capture money to help us get started.

Finances—Oh, yeah, that.
Lawnmowers, gas, clippers, oil, night crawler boxes, and other stuff had to be
purchased or found. Who knew? Fortunately, our Dad floated us our first round
of everything. We had to decide what to charge, how often we cut a lawn, and
how much we charged for the night crawlers and what type of box or can to put
them in to sell. We saw other signs for night crawlers for $X amount, and we
knew we couldn’t truly charge more than that unless we threw in something extra,
like a baker’s dozen. The lawn mowing was what the market rate was and what
some of our single widows could afford. Dad also made us mow a few lawns for
free because it was the right thing to do. What spurred us on was the fact my
brother and I wanted to buy motorcycles. We had priced them, and we knew the
cost. Just willy-nilly spending money wasn’t going to cut it; so, we made
financial sacrifices: not too much candy, pop, or too many Little Jack Horner
pies at the Menan Market. Plus, we had to replenish the supplies and gas we
used on the job. Fortunately, we understood that we had to earn/save more than
we spent. After a couple of years, we had enough to buy each of us a motorcycle—Hodakas!

Equipment and Maintenance—Some
businesses required equipment. Ours was one of those. We had to have lawn
mowers, clippers, bags, a way to haul our lawnmowers, rakes, shovels, and other
lawn mowing paraphernalia, and all of our night crawler things like milk cartons
(from the elementary), gunny sacks that keep the dirt cool and wet. The mowers
had to be clean; the clippers sharpened, and other tools cleaned. Plus, the oil
and gas had to be checked daily on the mowers. The air filter on the mower had
to be cleaned frequently. Eventually, things had to be replaced. Unfortunately,
we didn’t know anything about inventory control or stuff like that. We counted
our milk cartons or cans to make sure we had enough. Thankfully, some of the
fishermen brought their own containers, and we saved money.

Employees—My brother and I
were the employees and the bosses, and we had to learned to work together
although we had some falling outs, a few punches, and few tussles on the lawn.
Granted, I didn’t get to mow all the time, and he didn’t have to clip grass the
entire time, using actual clippers. We didn’t have weed eaters in the old days.
Plus, when we did night crawlers, we had up to four or five others helping us,
including our other siblings and friends.

Customers—We quickly
discovered that people wouldn’t just call us. We actually had to go out, knock
on doors, and talk to people. Some of our customers came from referrals. Then,
once we mowed their lawns, there was a certain expectations from them on how it
all ought to be done. While I may have thought I knew the proper way to mow a
lawn taught to me by my Dad, the customer also wanted their lawn cut a certain
way, their edges clipped a particularly way, and their sidewalks swept. We had
to adjust in order to have happy customers.

Marketing—Our marketing was
weak, especially for night crawler sales. We literally wrote up a sign with our
directions with arrows out on the main road. Amazingly, people came to buy night
crawlers, and they bought a lot of them. We made a big plywood board sign,
painted it, printed words in the best handwriting boys could muster, and placed
it in from of our house. Lots of the marketing was just word of mouth: “Hey,
Hammons have night crawlers for sale or the Hammon boys mow lawns.” Simple.
Marketing.

The hours/scheduling—This
might have been the most difficult. Boys have things to do in the summer: ride
bikes, fish, play army, fish, play softball, do chores, and complete other
tasks our parents wanted us to do. We had to learn to schedule mowing on
certain days because our customers wanted their lawns mowed only on certain
days of the week. We also discovered it was doggone hot around noon, and it was
no fun mowing. So we tried to mow in the early mornings before it got too hot.
The night crawler thing only happened when we had watered the lawn and the
pasture and at night after the sun dropped way behind Saddle Mountain in the
west. We somehow managed the scheduling without any help from an electronic scheduler
because we didn’t own a computer; they hadn’t been invented for regular Joes
like us. We used the calendar that hung on the wall. And it worked.

Lessons learned—We learned
many lessons, mostly that nothing was ever handed to us on a silver platter (my
Dad’s words). We actually had to earn money. Granted, Dad and Mom still let us
live in their house, eat their food, use many of the tools—the “in-kind” from
our parents. But overall, we had to work our tails off to make things work. We
could make money if we didn’t spend it all. Diligence and consistency were our
allies. Probably, the most important thing we learned was when we worked
together, we were a much better team. Fighting between us was always
problematic, and we didn’t accomplish as much. I think I am a much better
person because I learned how to work. I still get up early, work hard
throughout the day, and try to be the best person I ought to be.

1 comment:

My boys sold night crawlers in bulk and picked raspberries early in the mornings in Teton ID. When we moved to Boise they all took a turn at paper routes. Of course mom was right there helping . Never heard of "allowances". Now that my children are grown, they all thank me for helping them know how to work. It has blessed them in countless ways.

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We have been married for 37 years and have two daughters, Anna Rose (Christiaan) and Hailey (Joseph). We have four grandchildren--Emiline/William (Anna Rose) and Clark/Avonlea (Hailey).
We have previously served as Welfare Specialists in the Caribbean Area Welfare Offiice and lived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
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